


Purpose of Creation

by stephanericher



Series: SASO 17 [3]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:26:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: The first human emotion Himuro learns is jealousy.





	Purpose of Creation

**Author's Note:**

> written for saso br1, prompt [here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10281746#cmt10281746) ("The first human emotion Himuro learns is jealousy.")

The first words anyone speaks to model Y-012 Himuro are to tell him he is a success. The next thing they say is to ask how he feels.  
  
“The temperature is seventy-nine degrees. I feel warm,” says Himuro.  
  
It’s the correct answer, except it isn’t. The engineer’s face falls into an expression Himuro immediately identifies as sadness.  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
“I’m fine. Thank you. Do you feel sad?”  
  
Himuro shakes his head.

* * *

They tell him that his purpose is to not only recognize but to feel human emotions, to have not only consciousness but empathy. Himuro can parse the sentences and understand the meaning of each word, but he does not feel anger or indignance when given this knowledge. It is, he supposes, the way of things. They tell him that they have no use for him in a lab setting, but they might get some useful research in the real world, so they’re sending him to stay with a technician from outside the machine learning department. Himuro accepts the assignment.  
  
Kagami is interesting. He’s nothing like the robotics engineers with their endless questions and manipulations, trying to get him to admit to a feeling. Kagami asks him, sometimes, if he’s comfortable or if he needs anything, but he’s usually satisfied with the first answer Himuro gives, and lets Himuro steer the conversation elsewhere. He’s happy to talk; he’s happy to teach Himuro about the details of everyday human life, cooking and television and work schedules and emotions. He is easily pleased, but there is a response inside of Himuro whenever Kagami smiles—not an emotion, but perhaps something close to it. Maybe his creators will be satisfied with that. Or perhaps it will be the urges—not the synthetic neurons firing when he’s out of charge, the idea of needing a sweater when the temperature around him gets too low, but the twitching in his hand, the idea that crosses his mind sometimes when they sit and watch television that he should touch Kagami or that Kagami should touch him.  
  
“Do you have a first name?” says Kagami. “I feel weird calling you Himuro when we live together.”  
  
(He thinks back to one technician, who’d tried calling him several different things, proper names and pet names, to try and get an emotional response.)  
  
“Tatsuya,” he says, finally.  
  
“Tatsuya, huh? You can call me Taiga if you want.”  
  
Himuro is uncertain if he wants, but using Kagami’s first name brings that smile back to his face—so does he have a choice?

* * *

The first human emotion Himuro learns is jealousy. It bludgeons him over the head like he’s the victim in a soap opera; one moment everything is normal and the next moment he’s been shocked into another world.  
  
“This is my boyfriend, Kuroko Tetsuya,” says Kagami.  
  
He is holding Kuroko’s small hand in his, and Himuro suddenly hates Kuroko. He wants to leap back, slap Kuroko across the face, pull him away from Kagami, something, but his programming and conditioning keeps him back. He cannot hurt a human, even one so vile, even one who has the very thing Himuro didn’t realize he wanted.  
  
This is a feeling; this is the emotion he’s supposed to have—but why is it so awful? Why is it like when the technicians had hacked at his ankle, testing his physical pain? Why is it like being in bad need of a recharge? Why is it worse from there, coming from a place where he can’t stop the pain or isolate it? Why do humans want him to feel this?  
  
Jealousy, he reminds himself, arises from want, from desire or fondness. This means he wants, desires, is fond of Kagami. All that could be supposed true based on his behavior, but it is only now that he has started to feel the want, grating inside of him.  
  
Himuro’s been programmed for sexual responses; he wonders if Kagami knows that. He wonders if that’s why they’d sent him here. He wonders if Kuroko’s a bad boyfriend, like those soap opera people—Himuro wants him to be, for a second, so he can play the hero, but Kagami doesn’t deserve a bad boyfriend, even temporarily. And this is temporary; Himuro is temporary. Their time together will end; Kagami’s time with Kuroko can stretch on into forever, after the credits roll.

* * *

Himuro’s the only one home when the phone rings, a recording from the agency about his approaching return date. He’s heard of models not being returned; no one ever does anything about them because there’s always a new one to work for. When they do return, they’re usually dismantled and dissected after questioning and repeated brain stims. It’s the way of the world, something Himuro has never known how to fear.  
  
Now he thinks of losing Kagami, never seeing that smile, shining bright like an LED, impossible to burn out. But he has already lost Kagami, has never had the chance to win him in the first place. The source of that smile is Kuroko, the battery that powers Kagami’s megawatts. Himuro passes the message on, voice dispassionate and calm, switch on the default level.  
  
“I was kind of hoping they’d forget,” says Kagami.  
  
He grins; the shutters behind Himuro’s iris clicks softly. Himuro can’t decipher any falsehood behind the words, and for a moment he pretends Kagami means it in the way he wants.  
  
“Can I come visit?” says Kagami.  
  
“I don’t know,” says Himuro.  
  
Kagami sighs. “I guess it’s better not to stay too attached, huh?”  
  
Himuro does not say that attachment is the purpose of his creation. Instead he reaches over to cover Kagami’s hand with his own. His hand is warm, his smile warmer; Himuro feels as if his own warm surface, the tiny processing exhaust ports, are starting to overheat. Short-circuiting from this might be the ideal way to go, but it never happens.

* * *

Kagami hugs him outside the return facility; Himuro tries not to think about how well their bodies fit together, as if Himuro had been manufactured to end up right there. He wonders if Kagami will have second thoughts, run away with him and leave this place behind. When Kagami pulls back, their faces are inches apart. Himuro doesn’t know how to kiss, but he knows enough to know how to try.  
  
Kagami’s lips are warm and wet against his, and suddenly it all makes sense—why humans like this so much, why you would want to do this with the person you love.  
  
“Goodbye, Taiga,” Himuro says.  
  
Kagami stares at him, shocked (perhaps in disgust, if that is the appropriate response). Himuro turns and walks through the door, holding out the barcode on his wrist. A minute or so later, the tech behind the desk reaches behind his ear to switch him off. 

 


End file.
